Tim Cook’s custom-made Labubu wears black glasses and holds a tiny iPhone 17. Pop Mart gifted little Tim-Bubu to the Apple CEO while he was visiting Shanghai as part of a goodwill-building trip to China. The visit’s not PTO: Cook promised yesterday to boost investment in Labubu’s home country, despite its rocky relationship with the White House.

The announcement comes months after Apple said it would invest $100 billion in US factories as part of its “American Manufacturing Program.” Despite the domestic push, the majority of Apple’s manufacturing still occurs abroad, and that isn’t changing.

In other words, the Cupertino, California-based tech giant isn’t ready to break up with China, even as it hedges its bets by building up its operations in Vietnam and India.

The Blue-Bubble Ecosystem’s Expanding

Apple has a ton of new products to build. The tech company announced yesterday new MacBooks, iPads and Vision Pro goggles — all upgraded with its latest AI-boosted M5 chip. And just last month, Apple debuted its latest iPhone and Apple Watch models ahead of its big holiday-season sales push.

Apple’s also working on a new line of smart-home devices that includes security cameras and a display for controlling the system via an AI-upgraded Siri, Bloomberg reported. A one-armed tabletop robot is also said to be in the works (the arm could, for instance, move the screen to scroll a recipe while your hands are covered in cookie dough).

With so many products in the pipeline, Apple is tapping multiple countries for manufacturing:

• The smart home line will be built in Vietnam with help from leading EV-maker BYD, which Apple will also build iPads with, Bloomberg reported. Apple already manufactures other products in Vietnam but has historically launched new product lines in China before expanding them to other countries. Making Vietnam the home line’s home base signals a strategy shift.
• Apple has also expanded its production in India, where it now manufactures approximately 20% of its iPhones. Some products, including Macs, are also made in Malaysia and Thailand now.

iEverywhere: Apple relies on China for its manufacturing expertise and low-cost labor. No matter how tense the trade war between China and the US grows, Apple will be hard-pressed to give up on the country. But as Cook faces the prospect of ultra-high tariffs, other trade restrictions, and awkward group chats with the POTUS, he’s moving more of Apple’s supply chain to other countries. Of course, those countries are facing trade trouble, too: The Trump administration has tacked a 20% tariff on goods from Vietnam and a 50% levy on products from India (Apple products made in the country haven’t been affected so far).

American farmers are stuck between the plow and the deep furrow of the US-China trade war. For Archer Daniels Midland, that’s a good thing.

On Wednesday, shares of the crop trading and processing giant soared to a 52-week high as the president threatened “retribution” over China’s decision to stop buying US soybeans. So how is ADM making hay out of market chaos?

Oil Slick

“Tough” doesn’t begin to describe the year for US soybean farmers. China has long been a top buyer of the US crop, purchasing roughly half of all the soybean exports in 2024. That amounted to an estimated $12.8 billion in revenue for US farmers, per CNBC estimates. This year has been much different. As part of the tit-for-tat trade war, Beijing has slapped US soybeans with a 23% tariff. In reality, the tariffs have amounted to an all-out embargo; from May through at least September 11, China hasn’t made a single US soybean purchase, according to the US Department of Agriculture. Instead, the country has largely relied on importing massive amounts of soybeans from South America.

US farmers have been devastated. The White House has floated a bailout of at least $10 billion for the industry (the president of the American Soybean Association, meanwhile, recently told NPR that farmers would prefer a trade deal that reopens markets to a bailout). Now, the administration has also found its likely form of retribution: a complete embargo on Chinese cooking oils. That’d be a win for ADM, one of the major oilseed processors in America, hence its 2.4% jump on Wednesday. It’s also an escalation of a years-long, bipartisan mission to protect American cooking oil producers:

• Last year, the US purchased a record $1.2 billion worth of Chinese cooking oil, according to Census Bureau data, representing 43% of all Chinese exports of the good. The rise came as the cooking oil was repurposed to make renewable diesel fuel.
• That sparked concerns that US farmers were losing out on a growing market, which prompted the Biden administration to block the foreign product from qualifying for key tax credits. In June, the Trump administration imposed further barriers to discourage the importing of foreign cooking oils for use in renewable diesel fuel.

Fellow Soy Boys: Domestic soybean farmers aren’t the only ones receiving a bailout from the US government. Last week, the White House announced the framework for a $20 billion financial lifeline to Argentina to help prop up the nation’s flailing currency. That has sparked backlash from farmers, who view Argentina as a key competitor. In lieu of American soybeans, China has begun purchasing massive amounts of Argentine soybeans since Buenos Aires temporarily dropped its grain export taxes. In a trade war, it seems best to play both sides.

We’re more than two weeks into an economic data blackout due to the US government shutdown. Nevertheless, investors are still occasionally treated to a candlelight glimpse into the statistical void.

That happened on Wednesday as the Federal Reserve published its regular Beige Book report, laying out the central bank’s view of US economic conditions. The report cautions that tariffs are driving inflation higher and notes that companies are grappling with whether to bear the costs or pass them on to consumers. “Tariff anxiety” would be a great idea for a Halloween costume this year, and it may just fuel rate-cut hopes that preceded the shutdown well into the Christmas season.

Alternative Data

For consumers, economists and investors, the shutdown created a vacuum where inflation data would normally help forecast the direction of interest rates and capital markets. In the absence of government data, there are private-sector gauges like OpenBrand’s consumer price index, which tracks some 400,000 items. It rose the most since June last month. PriceStats’ measure of online retail sales, meanwhile, recently found the cost of furniture and household goods climbed more than 5% on an annual basis for the first time in over two years.

Then there’s the Fed, which keeps the lights on during shutdowns, and its Beige Book, published eight times a year. The latest edition noted that inflation remains elevated, that “more employers reported lowering headcounts through layoffs and attrition,” and that “economic activity changed little” since its last report, meaning it didn’t do appreciably better. And, while the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest consumer price index data would normally have been released on Wednesday, officials have been recalled to ensure a release on October 24, despite the shutdown. That means, shutdown or no shutdown, Federal Reserve officials will enter their next monetary policy meeting on October 28 with fresh data points that could influence any decisions:

• The latest BLS report, published last month, showed CPI increased at a 2.9% annualized rate in August, well above the Fed’s 2% target rate. If higher inflation persists in the October 24 report, it could encourage officials to hold off on rate cuts to try to tamp down costs. The sharp slowing of payrolls in recent months, on the other hand, encourages cuts.
• Fed Chair Jerome Powell noted Tuesday that, even as the economy “may be on a somewhat firmer trajectory than expected,” a point that seemingly suggests the Fed has wiggle room to focus on inflation by holding rates steady, there are “downside risks to unemployment” that could merit an October rate cut.

Jerome is Not Alone: Markets, currently pricing in a 97% chance of an October rate cut, and analysts think the Fed will opt for the scissors, something Powell’s colleagues Stephen Miran and Michelle Bowman are advocating. “Despite the uncertainty over tariff-induced consumer inflation, we expect the Fed to continue to cut rates in the remaining two meetings of this year,” LPL Financial chief economist Jeffrey Roach said on Wednesday, adding that “recession risks still appear well-contained.”